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Northern Ireland’s First Minister to give first public lecture in Scotland
Northern Ireland: The Challenge of Leadership

Aberdeen University’s pioneering Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies will play host this evening (February 26, 2002) to a public lecture by The Rt Hon David Trimble MP MLA, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, on Northern Ireland: The Challenge of Leadership.

This will be Mr Trimble’s first public lecture in Scotland since becoming Northern Ireland’s First Minister. Principal C Duncan Rice will provide an introduction to the evening’s proceedings and Dr Art Cosgrove, President, University College, Dublin, will chair the event being held in the Auditorium, King’s College Conference Centre.

The public lecture, presented as part of the Across the Water series on Scotland and Ireland, starts at 7.00pm and over 200 people have requested tickets for the lecture.

In his lecture Northern Ireland: The Challenge of Leadership, Mr Trimble will share his views on the creation and development of the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland.

This is the second event being held as part of the second Across the Water series presented by Aberdeen's pioneering Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies. The 2000/2001 lectures brought some of Scotland and Ireland's most distinctive voices to Aberdeen, including the Nobel laureate and poet Seamus Heaney and the Scottish devolution campaigner Canon Kenyon Wright.  All of the lectures explored cultural and public life "across the water".

Professor Tom Devine, Director of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, said that public events like these were central to the mission of the Institute.

He said: “Our primary focus is original research in the relevant fields and the advancement of knowledge.  However, we also have the vital need for the dissemination of our work and ensuring it is open wide to public debate and discussion especially in these momentous times for both Scotland and Ireland.”

Admission to this evening’s event is by ticket only and all available tickets have been issued.  For further details about the Across the Water lectures, please visit www.abdn.ac.uk/acrossthewater
 

ENDS

Members of the media interested in attending this evening’s lecture Northern Ireland: The Challenge of Leadership by the The Rt Hon David Trimble MP MLA, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, should contact University Press Officer Angela Begg on: (01224) 272960.
 

Notes to Editors:

David Trimble is one of the strongest voices in the Northern Ireland peace process.  His early career as a barrister and academic lawyer at the Queen’s University of Belfast gave way to mainstream politics when he won the seat of Upper Bann for the Ulster Unionist’s and entered Westminster in 1990.

His decision to sign the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 won him support from the British, Irish and American governments and led him to sharing the Nobel Peace Prize with SDLP Leader John Hume.

He was elected First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998.  But, a high-profile resignation pledge in the summer of 2001 became a reality because he had seen no movement towards IRA decommissioning.

When the IRA finally put some weapons “beyond use” he was re-elected First Minister in November 2001 and began the process of again striking that delicate balance between leading his party and sections of the unionist community towards the compromises necessary for peace and the successful implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.
 

Issued by Public Relations Office, External Relations, University of Aberdeen, King's College, Aberdeen.  Tel: 01224 272014  Fax: 01224 272086.

Ref:  957 Trimble
Date: February 26, 2002

University Press Office on telephone +44 (0)1224-272960 or email a.begg@abdn.ac.uk.